User blog:Deadcoder/Deadcoder's Reviews: William Returns
Right now, I have 3 review requests in the pipeline: William Returns, Final Round, and Double Trouble. Last time, I reviewed Echoes, the worst kind of low budget episode. With that in mind, I decided to review the best kind of budget episode in this review, and review William Returns for contrast. This review will have the usual 0 to 10, but it will also have some analysis of the show's overall production. In the tv and movie industry, sometimes an episode takes up more than an average budget, like for additional actors, or expensive effects, or other issues. However, the overall maximum budget remains. As a result, other things need to be made on the lowest budget possible. This is where clipshows come from, with the idea being to lower costs by recycling footage. Clipshows are garbage and universally despised. As part of western culture's backlash against clipshows, a replacement idea was needed for when there was a shoestring budget. This is where bottle episodes come from. The idea with bottle episodes is to produce a handful of episodes as cheaply as possible with minimal effects and cost, rather than a single clip show; with equivalent savings and less rioting. Because of all the various costs from season 4, and the cost of the ending of season 3, plus effects costs, a bottle episode became needed for Code Lyoko when season 4 was being made. William Returns is an animated bottle episode, a rare concept. With that in mind, let's begin. =The Review= In the beginning, we have a happy moment: William has been promoted to the title sequence! We then see the writing credits: Laurent Turner and Bruno Regeste. Since we have Laurent Turner, we know the episode is actually interesting. Since we have Bruno Regeste, we know it will be poorly paced, but have excellent drama. File these factoids away for later. The episode starts off with Jeremie covering up William's absense. A fun fact, most of this scene is recycled frames with new dialog. I like this scene because it's relatively realistic. The next day, Yumi and Ulrich point out that this is obviously not a good long term solution. Jeremie states that they may not need to worry about that. It's always fun to watch this episode right before down to earth. Aelita explains that they're recreating Lyoko. The next scene, the warriors show up, and we get a reminder of what happened last episode with Jeremie, Milly, and Tamiya. This becomes a minor B plot, because it could mean that the kadic news is dying, which is an issue for obvious closet cases like Odd, who need their gossip to be covert. He also reveals Jim's disco video in passing, which Sissi overhears. This segways into the next scene. We see Sissi's room, a recycled mat painting from Teddygozilla. Sissi explains her plan to Milly and Tamiya, and uses nepotism to take over the Kadic News. In the lab, Jeremie and Aelita recreate Lyoko using the largest untapped resource available: recycled footage. In the digital sea, we see the episode's money shot: Lyoko being reborn. This is the most expensive thing in the episode. I have an issue with this: While this is a GORGEOUS effect, it's very anti-climactic. In season 3, we watched for 13 episodes as this beautiful virtual world was destroyed piece by piece. Now it's been restored thank's to offscreen events. We'll call it even. Odd calls Aelita and Jeremie gods, and in a way, they are. Jeremie, in the arrogance he developed in Season 4, says "well, almost but not quite". Jeremie explains that so far, all they've recreated is Carthage, which, to be fair, is more reasonable than a complete reset of season 3. Later, the gang goes home, but we get some recycled footage from season 2, with dramatic music, the screen being hijacked, and the scanner opening. These two are highjacked from other episodes, including the one where the Krabs came to earth, and I think "A great day". In a C plot, Odd's open talk about Paco comes back to bite him in the butt, in the form of Jim being pissed and disappointed. So the C plot confronts the B plot "the kadic news thing", and the A plot characters get filled in on what's going on. We then get a scene where William explains that he has no clue what's going on. The characters, being genre savy, double check that none of the towers are activated. We then get a cute moment with William and Odd's Hair. Yay! Softcore Yaoi! Jeremie isn't really suspicious, just curious, wanting to know how William survived. In the next scene, the Kadic News crew shows up and starts poking holes in Aelita's fake backstory. It's kind of surprising that this didn't happen sooner. William shows up and covers for her, but then he turns out to be possessed by X.A.N.A.; and he turns out to be somewhat aware of it, in the same manner as Aelita in Saint Valentine's Day. They inform Jeremie of the issue. So the B plot partially rectifies by Milly and Tamiya making up and quitting. Jeremie checks on Aelita, but can't find her. At this point, Jeremie gets suspicious, and starts a phone tree scene. In the Gym, Jim is torturing Odd with disco. Yumi gets into the phone tree scene. In the factory, William virtualizes himself and Aelita, complete with the speed typing effect from double trouble. On Lyoko, to compensate for William's new outfit, they cover the cost by using Aelita's old model with ragdoll physics. This is actually pretty good drama and use of the limits of the episode. Ulrich gets virtualized by Jeremie, who is trying to reach Odd. Jeremie reveals that they got rid of the annoying countdown for Carthage, while William carries Aelita through a recycled environment from Uncharted Territory. Jeremie explains what's going on to Aelita, as she runs through the recycled environment. Yumi shows up to help. In the gym, Odd summons "Swarm of Fangirls" and depleats Jim of life points to escape. Aelita then arrives at the fake dead end of doom from Nobody in Particular, and is captured. Yumi arrives and nearly jumps off a cliff "Aelita is busy, so Yumi covered for her in the weekly suicide attempt". Yumi and Ulrich defeat the creepers and try to catch up with William. Odd has a hilariously cheesy scene with Jeremie. William and Aelita get to the outer edge of Carthage, and he escapes on a Manta. Fun fact, the location shot is also recycled, with slightly different character physics at the end. Jeremie figures out what's going on: William is going to try to dump Aelita into the digital sea. Yumi and Ulrich have to catch up with the vehicles. Jeremie virtualizes the vehicles, and uses the season 2 virtualization music to help them catch up. MORE RECYCLED FOOTAGE! Ulrich is devirtualized by recycled footage mines. We see all that remains of the Desert Sector: the orange digital sea. This is a very simple animation environment. Yumi is hit, and nearly dropped in the digital sea, but is rescued by Odd. Odd then rescues Aelita, and William goes back into the digital sea. In the Gym, they explain the sources of drama for season 4, and all is rectified between Jeremie, Milly, and Tamiya. Review Summary Overall, this episode is really good. I think this is a good standard for bottle episodes. A huge chunk of this is not new footage or environments, but we get an incredibly dramatic story. The A plot, B plot, and C plot are all watchable. The C plot isn't too tedious, the B plot is interesting and makes good use of the characters and setup from the previous episodes, and the A plot is very dramatic. The pacing is much better than usual for Bruno Regeste, which suggests that Laurent Turner had a lot of hand in this, "well, that and the unique storyline". This episode is very cheaply made. I mean, the scene with the desert sector only has two stationary objects: the entrance to Carthage, and the Digital Sea. Everything else is characters. And yet, it is a scene with strong action. In a related vein, I like the characters in this episode. The B cast really gets a chance to shine in this episode, William is a well written villain, Jeremie isn't an idiot savant, Aelita isn't as suicidal as usual, Ulrich isn't an asshole. I think that this episode did a good job with the characters. Another good part of this episode is that rather than trying to reset button everything, this episode tries to milk more drama out of special situations. This is a gold standard for bottle episodes. So with a great use of a limited budget, good character moments, strong drama, and a strong plot, I give this episode a 10/10, with only one issue, an issue I think needs to be addressed as part of the show as a whole. Analyzing the writers After this episode, Laurent Turner left Code Lyoko. I think this was a loss to the show. If you look through Mr. Turner's contributions to Code Lyoko, he tended to write one-off episodes, but the episodes tended to be extremely good, and more creative than average. I think he may have been the show's best writer, though the show had better episodes. He wrote the 3 episode arc starting with Double Trouble and ending with this episode. He wrote "The Girl Of The Dreams", which is responsible for more fanfiction than any other episode. He wrote Lyoko Minus One, Saint Valentine's Day, and Temptation; all of which are strong episodes, if sometimes flawed. Contrast this with Bruno Regeste. Bruno Regeste's episodes tend to have poor pacing, but strong drama, as indicated by most of his season 4 work. After season 3, he became the head writer of the show. It shows very strongly. Season 4 had much bigger stakes and stronger animation, but the overall quality of storytelling was weaker than the preceding seasons. I think Bruno Regeste is responsible for this, since it falls in his usual style. This episode marks a needed turning point between the Sophie Decroisette era and the Bruno Regeste era, for better and for worse. So I like this episode, but it is a tad bittersweet, due to what happened with the writers. Yes, we got major upgrades in art and drama, but we paid the price in quality of storytelling. Thank you Laurent Turner for your contributions to Code Lyoko. Also, thank you to anyone who enjoyed this review. Please consider donating to Foregen, in leu of subsidizing these reviews: foregen.org. Category:Blog posts Category:William Returns